Gambling addiction spiked with slots nearby

Recovered gambling addict Jason Applebaum says in his experience the closer the casino, the more destructive the behaviour.

Applebaum, 34, has been outspoken in his opposition to the province’s plan to add casinos, saying his addiction reached its peak when he lived in close proximity to one.

The Toronto resident has been expressing his concerns at public meetings relating to the Ontario Lottery and Gaming (OLG) Corporation’s plan to allow a 5,000-slot casino to be built in his city.

Applebaum worked in casinos for 12 years before quitting in May 2011 at the age of 32 because he said he could not continue to work in that environment and get sober (of gambling).

He got his first job at The Great Blue Heron in Port Perry at the age of 20.

"That was my first major exposure to the business," said Applebaum.

Until then, he said, he played with friends and at roving charity casinos in the 1990s, where he also worked as a part time blackjack dealer during high school.

In university, he said he really wasn't succeeding so he looked to a career in the casino business. He started working his way up in the table games department. He was a dealer and within a year-and-a-half was promoted to supervisor. After four years at Port Perry he moved to the newly opened Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls.

He was not allowed to play at the casino where he worked so he crossed the United States border to play at Niagara Seneca Casino in Niagara Falls, New York.

"I was in denial for most of my time as a gambler but I started to have significant problems when I moved to Niagara Falls. The drive to the casino was five minutes away, as compared to when I was living at home, the closest casino was a 90-minute drive. When the drive was five minutes, I was going more and more often because it was so close,” said Applebaum.

"I was living pay cheque-to-pay cheque, and I was making decent money at the casino for someone in their mid 20s but the more I made, the more I spent. I had access to credit and loans so I ran up credit cards, bank loans and lines of credit.”

He said during the lowest point he went six months without paying his credit card bill, but the worst was when he borrowed $10,000 at 30 per cent interest.

"I guess it was the addiction, I convinced myself that was a good idea," said Applebaum.

He estimates he accumulated as much as $200,000 debt in 10 years.

One-and-a-half years sober, he looks back on that decade as time wasted and regrets not taking better care of his health.

"Had I not stopped when I did there would have been family relationships jeopardized - the relationship with my mom because I got her involved so if I continued to gamble she would have had nothing to do with me," said Applebaum.

He said although he was always somewhat aware that his gambling was out of control there were a few ah-ha moments.

In 2009, while working part time in Niagara Falls, earning about $350 per week, he went to Casino Rama with his mother and lost $3,000 in less than two days.

"After that trip I came home and I was really distraught and started doing a lot of research online about what it meant to be a gambling addict...a lot of the dots started to connect and I was able to piece together the last 10 years of my life into that story," said Applebaum. "Even after that it still took me a while to come to terms with it, probably over a year."

He said in the last defining moments of his addiction he lost $10,000 in Las Vegas.

"I saw the true nature of what I was dealing with and I realized, if I am ever going to have a life I gotta quit gambling."

He said sometimes boredom was a driving factor.

"Even when I couldn't afford to gamble and my financial situation was bleak at best, the thought would always enter my mind that maybe I could win this time even though in the back of my head, I knew that wasn't true but it was enough to convince me to go," said Applebaum.

His biggest weakness was slots.

He saw the machines evolve from being fairly slow coin machines to faster machines that take bills.

"My biggest issue I have with slot machines is on average you can play 600 spins an hour but they also have this instant stop button that you can press that will give you the result of the spin. If you play with the stop button, you can play 1,800 spins an hour. So you can triple the speed of the play. Once I started speeding up my game play, I was getting a triple dose of the slot machine, which really messed up my mind,” said Applebaum.

He said slot machines could be equated to drugs.

"Every spin is like a small dose of heroin.”

He said slots are the most detrimental type of gambling on a community and the technological advancements that have been developed in the casino business over the last 10 years have not helped.

“They have really gotten good at what they do," he said. “The game is so much faster that it makes people want to play more. In going through therapy, I have been told that the gaming companies actually hire psychologists to add addictive features to the machines. They want people to play to exhaustion, which means until their bankroll is gone."

Applebaum said there are a lot of people in the casinos who show signs of gambling addiction but people don't talk about it.

“A lot of my coworkers were somewhere on the problem gambling continuum. I am not going to say they are complete addicts but they are definitely susceptible,” he said.

As he was coming to the realization that he had a serious problem he said he enjoyed his work less because he was seeing some of the same signs in the people frequenting the casino.

He said he received 15 minutes of training on responsible gambling during his orientation at Fallsview, where he worked for six years.

He said it is not common for staff to reach out to gabling addicts who are in over their heads.

"People like me are their bread and butter. I am the one who pays the bills not the person who's going for entertainment, which is portrayed in the media,” said Applebaum.

He has heard of failed suicide attempts at Gamblers Anonymous and knew one gambler who committed suicide. Reports of marathon gambling runs and leaving children unattended in parking lots are true.

The casino environment is such a negative place, he said.

"It brings out the worst in people. Because everyone in that environment is so abnormal in their behaviour, it just seems normal. That's what makes everyone okay with it."

He said the gambling culture allowed him to stay in denial for so long.

"There is a lot of shame and guilt that comes along with addiction and once I understood that there is nothing to be ashamed of...the more you talk about it the more you can help educate people on the matter. I guess my goal is to defeat the stigma. Sharing our stories is what can help people break through the guilt and shame."

Saying only one per cent of the population has a gambling problem minimizes the torment for the 200,000 people in Ontario, he said.

“Maybe the money we are going to generate isn't worth making people suffer and possible suicides and losing family members,” said Applebaum.